Rail strike to hit TGV, French regional transport Thursday

High-speed TGV services will be badly hit by the strike, the SNCF said Thursday, adding that only four of 10 Ter regional trains are likely to run.

Eurostar and international services to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany will run normally but only half of trains to Switzerland and one in three to Italy will run.

Paris regional RER trains will also be hit, with only one in three trains running on line B that serves Charles De Gaulle and Orly airports.

Thanks to a law passed under previous President Nicolas Sarkozy, railworkers who intend to go on strike have to declare their intention 48 hours beforehand, allowing their employer to make reasonably accurate predictions of the effects of the industrial action.

The government opened debate on a plan to reform the SNCF on 29 May.

Unions say that a proposal to create three different establishments could mean the break-up of the company.

The SNCF acknowledges that its employees are "worried" by the proposal, by the economic crisis and by "working conditions made more difficult by incivility" that sometimes includes physical attacks on public transport workers.

The strike starts at 19h00 local time Wednesday and ends at 08.00 am Friday.

A strike by air traffic controllers is due to end on Thursday morning.